Look who’s talking now

FOR anyone who is sceptical about baby signing, Katie Mayne has several anecdotes. One concerns a little boy who, having arrived at a fireworks display, seemed not to be enjoying himself. His parents watched him, considering what to do, then, quite unexpectedly, their son provided the answer. He put his hands together in a steeple shape – the sign for home. It was all they needed to know. They promptly complied.

Another story concerns Katie’s own son, Harry, who is now nine. Sitting in the back of the car, he started making the sign for fish. Katie, baffled, looked around for anything resembling a fish, not expecting to find one in a car park, and then she spotted it – a plastic dolphin hanging on the mirror of a neighbouring car.

It was a small thing, and yet it provided a window into the thoughts of her baby son months before he could articulate them.

As the founder of TinyTalk, an organisation which teaches sign language to hearing, as well as hearingimpaired babies, Katie is a staunch believer in the value of signing. She taught her daughter Lucy, who is seven, after it proved successful with Harry and has since gone on to teach hundreds of other babies basic gestures such as “milk” and “food”.

ACCORDING to Katie, one of the key benefits is the removal of frustration, so that instead of parents merely having to rely on their instincts for things like a tired or hungry cry, their child can actually tell them what they are thinking and feeling. She says: “You really do have a window into your baby’s mind and how they see the world. I really do think people underestimate how much babies have to say.”

Originally a primary teacher in central London, Katie, 41, who was born and brought up in Jesmond, Newcastle, first came to signing as part of post-graduate studies. She was instantly struck by its potential.

“I read loads about how hearing children acquire language and deaf children acquire language and one of the articles I read said that children who are exposed to signing – maybe there might be a deaf parent – were well ahead of their peer group in terms of their understanding and expressing themselves. There was one piece which said: ‘Surely there is some benefit to hearing children having some exposure to signing when they are young’. I thought ‘Oh wow, there’s something here for me to go on and take this further with my Masters’.”

When Harry came along – and despite the scepticism of her husband, Fergus – Katie, now a qualified teacher of the deaf, began putting her research into practice. She was rewarded when, at seven months old, he first signed “milk”. Soon her friends, impressed by what they saw, began asking her to teach their babies, and this led to Katie starting classes in her home town of Guildford in Surrey. She knew exactly the format she wanted.

“I was thinking music classes are usually the one thing mums do and singing is such a great way to develop signs – and books as well,” she says. “I also wanted a cup of coffee and chocolate biscuits. I threw it all in the pot and gave it a stir.”

The first TinyTalk classes began at Easter 2002, and from there they snowballed. Within a matter of months, an article in the local press led to magazine coverage, which led to an appearance on ITV’s This Morning. The timing wasn’t great – Katie gave birth to Lucy just as the business was taking off – but she knew it was then or never. It seemed obvious to start a franchise.

“I thought ‘Let’s get this across the country if we can’, so I thought franchising was the answer,” says Katie.

“Now we are in a beautiful barn conversion called The Dairy and I have 130 teachers across the UK. I also have two in Northern Ireland, about four or five in the Republic of Ireland and two in Australia.”

Along with commercial success has come a plethora of awards. Julia Maugham, who runs classes in Cramlington, Northumberland, was recognised by the website What’s On for Little Ones as the best teacher in the UK, while Katie herself counts being highly commended as a Business Mum of the Year among her plaudits. She now advises other mums on how to start their own business, and says that becoming a TinyTalk teacher can be an attractive option.

“We had an information day on Friday and one of the girls said ‘What is the main reason for people coming on board with you?’. I said it’s probably two-fold: one they have had a great experience with baby signing and two they want a better lifestyle choice. You may not earn quite as much as in your office job but you can have your kids with you.

You really can have it all.”

In terms of the business, things couldn’t be better. As well as the classes for babies, there are now those for toddlers, focusing more on speech; courses for nurseries and other groups, books, CDs and a DVD.

The redesigned website was launched last month and there is even talk of food-packaging deal, whereby vouchers will be redeemable against class places.

WHEN Katie started, she met some opposition from parts of the deaf community, who questioned her motives for using British Sign Language, the official language of the hearing impaired.

Her defence was robust, and now she says her teaching is embraced.

“It’s really important to me that we use British Sign Language.

It’s so beneficial to so many groups in society. I’m trying to bridge the gap between the deaf and hearing communities.”

As Katie sees it, signing can be a language for life, enabling children to converse with their deaf peers and thereby fostering greater understanding.

She also believes it can be great fun. “So many of the signs are quite obvious or iconic and actually they are a lot of fun, even just trying to get a message across to somebody in a crowded room,” she says. “I’ve heard that families like having their own particular language.”

• There are TinyTalk classes in Durham, Derwentside, Newcastle, Harrogate and York. For more details visit tinytalk.co.uk

Britain’s boring mealtimes

NEW research by discount website, myvouchercodes.

co.uk, has revealed that the average Briton cooks only ten different meals for their evening dinner, rotating them week in, week out, with spaghetti Bolognese pipping roast dinners to the post as the most popular meal in the UK.

The study polled 1,451 men and women aged 18 and over as part of research into the cooking habits of Britons.

Respondents to the study were initially asked to estimate how many different evening meals they regularly cooked. While the majority, 56 per cent, stated that they regularly cooked “eight to ten different meals”, only one in ten, nine per cent, explained that they cooked “20 or more” different types of evening meal. One in five, 19 per cent, of respondents admitted to regularly cooking “fewer than five”

different evening meals on rotation.

Ninety-two per cent further admitted that they usually ate the same meals on rotation over several weeks.

The top five most popular meals as cooked by Britons were as follows:

1 Spaghetti Bolognese – 33 per cent
2 Roast dinner – 26 per cent
3 Stir fry – 21 per cent
4 Chilli con carne – 16 per cent
5 Curry – 15 per cent

Cameron’s influence

HE may be facing criticism over government cuts, but it looks like David Cameron, right, has been holding a strong influence over parents since even before he came into power, with Cameron being revealed as the most popular surname used as a first name for babies born in the UK over the past decade.

The data shows that 26,401 babies named Cameron were born between 2000 and 2010 – and with 14,482 children born last year given a first name traditionally associated with a surname, it looks like this is a trend set to grow even more.

The list was compiled by parenting club Bounty from registered baby names given to children born in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Top Ten surnames as first names:

Cameron – 26,401
Tyler – 21,233
Harrison – 13,313
Taylor – 12,732
Logan – 11,610
Riley – 9,678
Mason – 9,252
Bailey – 9,004
Brooke – 8,584
Maddison – 5,568